MANAGING SOCIAL NETWORK ACCESSIBILITY BASED ON AGE

• US 20140150068A1
• Filed: 11/28/2012
• Published: 05/29/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Janzer, Paul
• Granted Patent: US 8,966,590 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/4
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2149 Restricted operating environment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/20 for managing network security; network security policies in general filtering policies H04L63/0227

Abstract

When a user having an age less than a threshold age (a child user) attempts to access an online service or perform actions using the online service, the online service obtains parental authorization from an additional user having a parental relationship to the user. The child user may identify the user having the parental relationship and the online service verifies the validity of the identified user'"'"'s account, the age of the identified user, and/or a connection between the identified user and the child user having a parental relationship type. The online service may make these verifications based in part social and transactional information associated with the identified user'"'"'s account. Upon successful verification, the online service allows the identified user to authorize account creation for the child user, and/or manage the account and actions of the child user.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, from a purported parent user, a request to regulate actions of a child user in a social networking system, the child user having an age that is less than a threshold age;

accessing information associated with an account in the social networking system of the purported parent user and accessing information associated with an account in the social networking system of the child user;

determining whether a parent-child relationship exists between the purported parent user and the child user based at least in part on (1) the information associated with the account of the purported parent user and (2) the information associated with the account of the child user;

responsive to determining that the parent-child relationship exists between the purported parent user and the child user, prompting the purported parent user to provide one or more administrative settings regulating actions of the child user in the social networking system;

receiving, from the purported parent user, one or more administrative settings regulating actions of the child user in the social networking system; and

managing actions by the child user in social networking system based at least in part on the one or more administrative settings received from the purported parent user.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining whether a parent-child relationship exists between the purported parent user and the child user comprises:

determining whether the account of the purported parent user is valid;

determining whether the account of the purported parent user is associated with a purported parent user age that is equal to or exceeds an adult age threshold; and

determining that the purported parent user has a parent-child relationship with the child user based at least in part on the determination that the account of the purported parent user is valid and on the determination that the account of the purported parent is associated with a purported parent user age that is equal to or exceeds the adult age threshold.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, further comprising:

responsive to determining an existence of a parent-child relationship between the purported parent user and the child user, determining whether the account of the purported parent user is connected to the account of the child user;

responsive to determining that the account of the purported parent user is not connected to the account of the child user, automatically establishing a connection in the social networking system between the account of the child user and the account of the purported parent user, wherein the established connection cannot be terminated unilaterally by the child user and has a connection type indicating the parent-child relationship.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

automatically notifying the purported parent user about types of communications received by the child user in the social networking system, wherein the types of communications are specified by the one or more administrative settings.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the types of communications are selected from the group consisting of:

an invitation to an event, a request to form a connection with an additional user of the social networking system, and a request to join a group in the social networking system.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

notifying the purported parent user of a request to connect to an additional user of the social networking system sent by the child user.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting, to the purported parent user, descriptions of updates to the account of the child user.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more administrative settings indicates one or more types of social network connections that which the child user may establish.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein managing actions by the child user in the social networking system based at least in part on the one or more administrative settings received from the purported parent user comprises:

limiting actions in the social networking system capable of being performed by the child user to actions specified by the one or more administrative settings.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more administrative settings specify objects in the social networking system with which the child user is permitted to establish a connection.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein an administrative setting specifies whether the child user may receive information from other users in the social networking system with which the child user is not connected.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

limiting content accessible to the child user to content associated with users of the social networking system connected to the child user if the age of the child user is less than a minimum age based on information associated with the account of the child user.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

hiding the account associated with the child user from appearing in search results from the social networking system if the age of the child user is less than a minimum age based on information associated with the account of the child user.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

blocking receipt of connection requests from other users by the child user if the age of the child user is less than a minimum age based on information associated with the account of the child user.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request from the child user to access a social networking object that is associated with an age limit; and

denying the child user access to the social networking object responsive to determining that the age of the child user does not meet the age limit.

16. A computer-implemented method comprising:

determining whether a first user of a social networking system is a parent of a second user of a social networking system based at least in part on social signal information for the first user and social signal information for the second user;

after determining that the first user is the parent of the second user, providing information to the first user regarding one or more requests for the second user from other users of the social networking system, the one or more requests each requesting to establish a connection with the second user over the social networking system;

responsive to providing the information regarding the one or more requests, receiving an indication from the first user that a connection between at least one of the other users and the second user may not be established over the social networking system; and

preventing establishment of a connection over the social networking system between the second user and the at least one of the other users based on the received indication from the first user.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein determining whether the first user is the parent of the second user comprises:

determining whether a difference between an age indicated in a user profile of the first user and an age indicated in a user profile of the second user is greater than a threshold amount;

determining whether a geographic location indicated in a user profile of the first user and a geographic location indicated in a user profile of the second user are within a threshold proximity; and

determining that the first user is a parent of the second user based at least in part on (1) a determination that the difference between the indicated age of the first and the indicate aged of the second users is greater than a threshold amount, and (2) a determination that the indicated geographic location of the first user and the indicated geographic location of the second user are within the threshold proximity.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein determining whether the first user is a parent of the second user is based on validation of a unique identifier associated with the first user, wherein the unique identifier is an email address of the first user or a portion of a social security number of the first user.

19. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving an age limit for an object maintained by a social networking system;

receiving a request to access the social networking object from a user of the social networking system;

determining an age of the user based at least in part on one of;

data in a user account associated with the user, connections between the user and other users of the social networking system, and actions performed by the user in the social networking system; and

preventing access to the social networking object by the user responsive to determining that the age of the user is less than the age limit for the object.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 19, wherein determining the age of the user comprises one or more of:

determining an average age of the other users connected to the user and receiving an age of the user from an additional user identified as a parent of the user.